


The One Where Mistakes Are Forgiven

by Moorishflower



Series: A Cold Academic Hell [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Winchester household, it isn't Christmas unless someone's heart gets stamped on. Then again, it isn't Christmas without forgiveness, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Mistakes Are Forgiven

  
A-Side: Dean   


December twenty-third dawns clear and cold, with drifts of snow piling up against the sidewalk curbs and people in thick coats rushing to and fro across the street. The air is crisp and clean, and it’s the sort of day that you’d expect to find immortalized on a postcard somewhere. The only thing missing is a picturesque little sleigh being driven down the center of the street, and maybe a group of Christmas carolers on the corner, their cheeks and noses red from the cold, their song books all held up at precisely the same angle.

It’s all fuckin’ _perfect_ and Dean can’t stand the sight of it.

He’s uncomfortably aware of the fact that he’s been a raging asshole since the sixteenth, but he just…really can’t stop. Sam’s happy. Dean should be glad that Sam’s happy, for whatever reason, but he just _isn’t_ , because he’s a selfish bastard like that, and thinking about it only makes him more unhappy, which, in turn, makes him act like even more of a dick. It’s a vicious cycle that Dean can’t seem to break, and he _hates_ it.

But it feels like he can’t _do_ anything about it. He’s angry forty percent of the time and miserable the other sixty, and it’s all his fault for maintaining the stupid fucking notion that maybe, just _maybe_ Castiel would let him continue having his stupid fucking _fantasy_ without calling him out on it, and obviously that was a _stupid fucking idea_.

The fact that he’s taking it out on Sam doesn’t help him any.

“ _Dude,_ ” Sam shouts, after Dean snaps at him for the third time in an hour – and over something as trivial as Sam leaving his shoes protruding out from under the table, too. “What is your fucking _problem_?”

“Your face is my problem,” Dean mutters, and carefully steps over Sam’s other shoe before dropping down onto the couch. He immediately curls up onto his side, pushing his face into the couch’s arm.

“You’ve been like this for _three days_ , Dean! If you’re gonna spend the whole break being a massive douchewad, I might just have to get a hotel room.”

Dean snarls into the arm of the couch. “Then _get a fucking hotel room_.”

Sam sighs extravagantly, and then Dean feels him pushing at his legs, trying to make space on the couch. After a moment, he pulls his legs up closer to his body, giving Sam room to sit. A warm weight settles next to his feet, and Dean can feel Sam’s eyes focused on him like a pair of lasers.

“Talk to me, man,” he says, and Dean makes a soft, uncomfortable noise. “This has to do with that present, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Dean says.

“Not to make things harder or anything, but I think you kind of have to.”

“Fuck off.”

“Not until you tell me what the hell’s wrong. What happened? Did the guy not like it?”

 _Freud’s theories have been considered out of date for many years,_ Dean thinks miserably. _And so have my wooing techniques. Fuck my life._

“Are you planning on letting me bask in my misery, or are you just going to sit there and annoy me,” Dean mumbles.

“I’m going to keep bringing it up until you talk to me about it. You know, contrary to what dad taught us, internalizing everything _isn’t_ healthy.”

“But it’s so _effective_.”

“Obviously not, if your bad mood’s even making _me_ feel pissy.”

“How about we talk about that instead? Why are _you_ in such a _good_ mood, Sammy?”

Dean lifts his head from the couch arm just in time in see Sam purse his lips. “That’s not what we’re talking about.”

“Turn-about’s fair play.”

“This isn’t turn-about, it’s you continuing to be an asshole despite my best efforts to get you to talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you.”

“To-may-to, to-mah-to.”

Sam makes a soft, disgusted noise and then shoves irritably at Dean’s hip. “ _God_ , Dean, just…stop being such a fuckhead and _listen_ to yourself.”

“I am listening to myself,” Dean says dully, “and it sounds like misery and you beginning to annoy me. Now unless you’re planning on going and getting me a beer, would you mind letting me have the rest of the couch back?”

Sam makes another noise of disgust, this one substantially louder, but it’s also accompanied by him getting up off the couch, allowing Dean to uncurl his legs and stretch out as much as he wants.

He stuffs his toes down between the cushion and the other arm of the couch, and feels his hollow accomplishment sitting like a stone in his chest.

~

Dean spends the day before Christmas wrapping presents. He’s never been very good at wrapping things. It requires a more delicate touch than he’s used to, and so he tends to do stupid things, like tear the paper or use too much tape, which is why he usually just puts things in those fancy gift bags and leaves them under the tree. Lazy man’s wrapping paper, and Sam laughs at him for it, always, but Sam sucks at decorating, so they’ve both got their weaknesses. This year, though, Dean finds himself wrapping things a tad more viciously than he normally does, as evidenced by the paper that’s strewn around him, half of it torn and the other half crinkled to the point where it can’t even really be considered wrapping paper anymore, just…trash.

Dean stares despairingly at the mess around his feet, at the presents that sit in an accusing pile in front of him, and then at his hands, his stupid, stubborn hands, which seem unable to grasp the simple concept of “delicacy.”

“God _damnit_ ,” he mutters, and crosses his legs, and pulls the present that he had been trying to wrap – a book, for Sam, some book about religion and its history in the courtroom, all the cases that have had religious aspects to them, Dean’s not entirely sure – closer, hauling it into his lap and staring at it. It’s a fucking _book_ , all square and not particularly heavy – it should be easy to wrap, but, somehow, it isn’t.

Or maybe Dean just sucks that much.

 _That’s probably it,_ he thinks, vaguely, and reaches for another roll of wrapping paper. He’s already gone through one, although, in his defense, that one was almost gone because they used it last year, too. Still, this whole affair is taking way longer than it should, and Dean hates it.

He’s got nothing against Christmas. Nothing against presents and trees and decorations, and he’s definitely got nothing against wrapping paper (though, considering the carnage he’s sitting in, you wouldn’t think it). This is just…a bad year. It’s a bad year and the holiday season hasn’t exactly been treating him well, as of late, and it’s affecting everything he does. Not just how pissy he is with Sam, not just his performance at work (“ _Idjit_ , you need the _other_ wrench.”), but now it’s even affecting his fucking _hand-eye coordination_.

“Damn,” he says again. He carefully unrolls the wrapping paper, and then spreads it out on the floor and begins to try and wrap the book. For the third time.

Almost immediately, he gives himself a paper cut. He stares at his bleeding finger in disbelief.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he says, and then, carefully holding his injured finger away from the book and the wrapping paper, he scrambles to his feet and hurries from his room, careful to close the door behind him. He doesn’t want Sam getting even a glimpse of his presents – the past month has been…well. Dean’s uncomfortably aware of how much of a douchebag he’s been being, and he’s sort of…gone overboard with the presents in response to that.

It’s not exactly an apology, but Sam will recognize it for what it is. He hopes.

In the kitchen, he hurriedly runs the sink until the water’s as cold as he can stand it, then sticks his finger underneath the stream and alternates between hissing at the sting and sighing as his finger goes blessedly, comfortably numb. He makes a wordless sound of relief.

“You need a band-aid?”

Dean glances over his shoulder without taking his finger from under the cold water. Sam stands in the doorway to the kitchen, shopping bags piled under his arms and hooked around his wrists. Dean can see the irregular shape of a ham in one of them, and smaller, lumpier bags in the others. Christmas dinner, he realizes. He’d…forgotten.

“You went shopping without me,” Dean says, and Sam shrugs, almost imperceptibly, as he steps into the kitchen and sets his bags down on the table. The first thing he removes from them is a bag of sweet potatoes.

“Yeah, well, you were kind of…” Sam gestures, and it’s vague but also sort of unmistakable. _You were being a douche,_ that gesture says. But Sam finishes with, “Out of it,” and Dean snorts.

“You can tell me I’m being an asshole.”

“I have been telling you,” Sam says easily. “You haven’t really been listening.”

The water is getting uncomfortably cold, and his finger is as numb as it’s going to get. Dean reaches out without looking, fumbling for the tap and then turning it off. “Look, I know I’ve been…”

“You know,” Sam interrupts, “but you haven’t tried to do anything about it. That’s my problem, Dean, not…whatever it is that’s crawled up your ass and died. My problem is that you’re not trying to make things better. You’re just internalizing, and it’s not working.”

“Using your upcoming degree in law to psychoanalyze your fucked up brother,” Dean says softly, and Sam frowns at him as he removes a – Dean was right – ham from one of his shopping bags.

“See, you’re doing it again. You don’t want to talk to me, you don’t want to just let whatever it is go, so what else is there? You’re just going to keep getting worse and worse, and I don’t know what you expect to happen. It’s not just going to magically get better, and you’re not going to forget it happened.”

“I can try.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that you’re failing.”

Dean clenches his fist. Unfortunately, it happens to be the hand he got a papercut on, and the pressure makes him wince. Sam rolls his eyes.

“Let me get you a band-aid, you wimp.”

“You and your unnatural tolerance for pain,” Dean mutters.

Sam snorts as he sets down his ham and then pulls open the cupboard under the sink, grabbing a box of band-aids and pulling one out. “Says the guy who once dislocated his arm and insisted _I_ help him fix it, instead of going to the hospital?”

“Dislocated anything isn’t so bad,” Dean protests. Sam pauses, staring at him, and Dean feels suddenly uncomfortable. They’re both only too aware of how much truth there is to that statement. John Winchester never laid a hand on his youngest son. Sam was a disappointment, and received the brunt of all the emotional abuse, but he grew up relatively healthy, save for the few times he got sick as a child.

Dean had developed, at a very young age, a distressing tendency to walk into walls. And fall down stairs. And slam his limbs in doors.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he says softly. _It only happened a few times,_ he wants to say. A broken arm, a sprained wrist here or there, a few bruises. Their father never _hit_ him, not once, but sometimes it was hard to dodge a thrown bottle. Sometimes Dean couldn’t dodge a shove fast enough. He’d been more likely to injure himself in the many fights he got into in middle and high school. He _had_ , in fact – he’d ended up with a broken jaw after he slept with the girlfriend of the captain of Southmore High’s rugby team. In Dean’s defense, he hadn’t know she was the guy’s girlfriend – Dean was a dick sometimes (a _lot_ of the time), but he wasn’t a cheater, and he didn’t help other people cheat.

Sam clears his throat. He offers the band-aid, and Dean takes it with his uninjured hand, and then quickly wipes the water off of his fingers (careful not to aggravate the cut) as he peels the band-aid open with his teeth.

“So, I bought sweet potatoes,” Sam says. “I mean, you really liked how I made them, last time, and…”

“There’s this guy,” Dean whispers. Sam shuts up almost immediately. “There’s this guy that I like.”

“Sort of already knew that, Dean.”

“Yeah, but…” Dean shakes his head. “It’s almost more than just liking him. I mean, he’s smart, and gorgeous, and he’s got these… _intense_ eyes. Like, when he looks at you, it feels like he’s looking at your soul. And he’s nice, Sam. He’s real nice. You know how my track record’s been.”

“Lisa?”

“Not Lisa,” Dean disagrees softly, and tries to ignore how just the sound of her name sends a shiver, an _ache_ , down his spine. “Lisa was…good. She was good for me.” He leaves the rest of it unsaid - _but I wasn’t good for her._

Sam leans back against the counter, watching Dean struggle to get the band-aid wrapped around his finger. After a moment of silence, Sam makes a soft, exasperated sound and then reaches out, taking the half-open band-aid from Dean and performing the act himself. “I get it, you know. You’ve never dated someone nice before.”

“Plenty of people who’ve been nice,” Dean corrects. “Not many people who’ve been interested in sticking around.”

“So, you like this guy. The psychology major.”

 _Figures Sam would remember that,_ Dean thinks. But…“Yeah. Him.”

“And this whole thing has been about him.”

Dean swallows. “Yeah.”

“What about the present? What happened with that?”

“He didn’t like it.”

“Did he _say_ he didn’t like it?”

“You saw what I got.” Dean pulls his hand away from Sam, bending his finger, trying to loosen the band-aid a little bit. “That stupid calendar.”

“I figured he’d think it was cute.”

“Yeah, well. He told me that Freud is outdated and inaccurate and just…he just stared at me, so I left.”

“You already said that he’s intense, though,” Sam says.

“Yeah? And?”

“Maybe he just didn’t know how to thank you? Or he didn’t know what to say?”

Dean shakes his head slowly. Castiel is…hell, even _Dean_ isn’t that socially inept, and he’s spent most of his life either fighting or fucking his way through everything. Dean knows how to tell someone “thank you,” and Castiel is a psychologist. He’s got to know more about those sorts of things than Dean, right?

Right?

“I just don’t know,” he says. “It probably doesn’t matter anymore, anyways. I left sort of…abruptly.”

“Dean,” Sam says quietly. “I’m…”

“Don’t say you’re sorry.” Dean glances at the shopping bags on the table, then rolls his shoulders and picks up the ham to put it in the fridge. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“I should have tried to think of a better present.”

“Don’t.” Dean opens the fridge and shoves the ham inside, next to a few slices of pizza from last night. Dean pulls those out, having the vague idea that maybe some lunch will make him feel less shitty. “He’s not your…whatever we are. Aren’t.”

“Still…”

“No. No buts, no stills. It was my problem, Sam. I shouldn’t have gotten so freaking attached.”

“You’ve always been like that, you just need to find someone who doesn’t mind.”

Dean snorts. “Fat chance of that. Who the fuck would be interested in an emotional cripple like me?”

Sam opens his mouth, but closes it when Dean glares at him.

“Well,” he says after a moment, “at least you admit it?”

“I’ve never denied that I’m messed up,” Dean counters. “I just don’t need any help with it.”

“Dean…”

“Don’t take that fucking _tone_ with me, Sam!”

Sam freezes. Dean feels a chill run down his spine.

“Shit,” he says. “Shit, Sammy, I didn’t…”

Sam takes a deep breath. “It’s okay, Dean.”

“But…”

“No, really. It’s okay. I just…” Sam gestures towards the living room, taking a step back. “I’m gonna go watch some TV. Let me know if you need to wrap presents and I’ll get out of your way.”

Sam turns, walking stiffly out of the kitchen, his shoulders almost hunched. Dean thinks of all the times that their father yelled at Sam, all the times he threw things, all the times he…

 _Don’t you dare take that fucking tone with me, boy._

Dean swallows. He glances at the rest of their groceries, and then begins, slowly, to put them away. He puts the sweet potatoes in the pantry, and the apples – not cheap red delicious ones, but fancy ones that Dean doesn’t recognize by sight – in the fruit bowl on the counter. He pulls chestnuts out of the bag and lays them next to the sink.

Then, still moving slowly (giving Sam time to think, although Dean doesn’t admit that to himself, doesn’t even try), he pulls out a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard, pulls out bread and honey and butter. He’s generous with the honey and butter, spreading the peanut butter thin. He cuts off the crusts and then, glancing briefly out into the living room, he eats them. The honey and butter combination is sort of cloyingly sweet, but he remembers doing this for Sam when his baby brother was still too short to reach the counter in order to make his own sandwiches. Sam had been a fussy eater, and when you had a dad whose idea of home cooking was some form of pasta with cheese and red sauce, and when you didn’t have a home so much as you had a series of motel rooms, being a fussy eater was a recipe for malnutrition and awfulness. Sam hadn’t liked bread, and he hadn’t liked protein, except for hot dogs, but Dean had read somewhere that hot dogs were legally allowed to be like point-five percent insect parts, and no little brother of his was eating _bugs_.

But Sam had liked sweet things. Hence, the peanut butter and honey combination. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest thing in the world, but there was bread, and protein, and honey had like, anti-oxidants in it, didn’t it? So it had worked.

Dean slides the sandwich onto a plate, and then carries it out into the living room. Sam is sitting on the couch, staring at the television. The television is off.

Dean drops down beside Sam, jostling him gently. “Brought you lunch.”

“It’s almost seven,” Sam says.

“Late dinner, then.”

“Dean…”

Dean holds up his hand. “Look. You’re right, okay? I’ve been…” Dean rocks his hand back and forth, and then gives up on trying to find a kinder word. “I’ve been a fuckhead. But I’m gonna stop, okay? There’s no point in being an asshole over a guy who’s probably forgotten I even gave him a gift at all.”

“I doubt he’s that flakey.” Sam reaches for the plate that Dean’s holding, letting it rest in his lap. “Haven’t had one of these in a while.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t channeled dad for a while.”

Sam leans to the side, slightly, bumping Dean’s shoulder with his own. “You aren’t like him, you know.”

“You keep telling me that, but I’m not so sure you’re right. He couldn’t hold down a relationship, either.”

“Because of mom.”

“Because of a lot of things,” Dean corrects softly.

Sam picks up the sandwich, and takes a cautious bite. He chews, thoughtfully, and then swallows.

“Oh my god,” he says, “how did I _eat_ this when I was a kid? It’s nothing but sugar.”

“You ate nothing but sugar.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You ate marshmallow fluff straight from the jar, too.”

Sam punches him in the shoulder, laughing – he smells like peanut butter.

Dean, after a moment, laughs too.

~

By the morning of the twenty-fifth, all presents are wrapped and accounted for, stuffed underneath their tiny, fake little Christmas tree. They don’t have the space for a real one, and besides, their landlord has listed pine trees under “fire hazards,” so they make due with one that sort of, almost, _looks_ real.

Dean wakes up to the smell of coffee, and eggs and bacon. He’s sitting on the couch, head tilted back at a weird angle, his legs flung everywhere and one arm curled against the cushions, like he’d been holding something. The rest of the couch is empty, though.

Sam is leaning over him, hands placed on his knees, smiling gently.

“Morning,” he says softly, and Dean groans, stretching, wincing when he realizes exactly how bad the crick in his neck is. “Sleep okay?”

“Aside from the part where I slept sitting up on the coach.” Dean’s voice is still gravelly with sleep, and he slowly shakes his head, trying to clear away the fog of drowsiness.

“Yeah, well, think how I felt. I’m a lot bigger than you.”

“ _A lot_ ,” Dean repeats dubiously, but doesn’t push it any further, because Sam is still smiling, and after last night that’s a good sign.

Shit. _Last night_.

“Hey,” he says, still trying to wrestle his way to full wakefulness. “Last night…”

“Dean, just let it go.” Sam touches Dean’s arm. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Dean responds, automatically. And then, “Why does it smell like bacon?”

“Because I made bacon.”

Dean squints. “Sam, you’ve never made bacon before.”

“I have too!”

“Not without being told to.”

Sam shrugs. “I just…wanted it to be a good morning. For both of us. So I made breakfast, and then we can open presents.”

This is all a new addition to the Christmas morning ritual – the breakfast, the apologizing, Sam’s earnest expression – and Dean feels odd, off-kilter. He hopes this isn’t repeated next year. For now, though, he forces himself to stand, groaning deeply at all the various aches and pains in his body (some of them from sleeping in a weird position, some of them from working as a mechanic, and some of them from…well, from other things). “All right, coffee,” he says vaguely. “I smell coffee.” He takes a shuffling step towards the kitchen.

A minute later, Sam is pressing a steaming mug into Dean’s hands. He blinks.

“When the hell did you learn to teleport?”

“You’re practically sleepwalking,” Sam laughs. “I thought it’d be faster if I just got the coffee for you. Sit back down, Dean. Wake up for a bit.”

So, that’s how they spend their Christmas morning: sitting on the couch, drinking coffee, and then, a little bit later, eating scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and huge chunks of bacon in them. They’ve always lived together, Dean thinks. He and Sam have always lived together, first with their father, in countless motel rooms, and then, for a while, on their own, before Sam had figured out what college he wanted to go to. They’ve lived together for twenty-two years and Dean can’t remember when Sam learned to cook for himself. Growing up, he was always the one to cook – whether it was pasta or grilled chicken or just canned soup, didn’t matter. Dean cooked, and fixed cars, and hustled pool when they needed some money and their father couldn’t be found, and Sam went to school and got good grades, and won science fairs, and made honor roll, and got accepted to college. So when did Sam learn how to make scrambled eggs? When did he learn to make bacon?

“When did you learn to cook?” he asks, at some point, and Sam’s expression shutters, but just for a moment. Then it opens up again, and he looks...pained. Though, it is worth noting, that the pain is an old one. Like discovering a scar that still, on occasion, itches.

“Jess,” he says softly, and Dean grunts.

“I’m surprised you know where all the pots and pans are in this kitchen, then.”

Sam scowls. Dean flicks a small piece of egg at him.

That’s their Christmas morning.

Afterwards, there are presents. The book for Sam – the one about religion and the courtroom – is a success. He opens it immediately, and has to be reminded that there are other presents he needs to attend to. He likes the shirts that Dean got him, soft, v-necked shirts in jewel-bright colors, sapphire blue and emerald green. Dean won’t say it out loud, but they bring out Sam’s eyes. Make them pop. Whoever it is that Sam’s yearning after, whatever guy he’s interested in, Dean’s pretty sure that, if Sam wears those shirts while he’s talking to him, it’ll be a done deal. Dean will be setting out an extra chair and plate for dinner in no time flat.

When Dean opens his presents, he’s not surprised to find a new pair of boots, a couple of shirts, and some new tools to bring to work. He is surprised to find a poster for Dr. Sexy MD (a show that Sam isn’t even supposed to know that he watches), and Led Zeppelin II on vinyl, in good condition, the smell of it old and familiar and sort of heart-achey. Dean doesn’t ask how much it cost, but he knows that Sam’s probably put a dent in his summer savings. Knows that he’ll probably be working overtime, once classes are over for the year, in order to build his funds back up. Sam, Dean has learned, isn’t like him. He can’t work and still go to school, not without splitting his concentration so bad that he ends up completely failing at one, or the other, or, entirely possibly, both. So Sam works during the summer, and Dean works all year round, and Sam isn’t always happy with how much he’s contributing, but it’s not something he can help.

After presents, there’s cleaning up the mess, storing bows and wrapping paper for use next year, and throwing out tags and labels. Then, with the living room looking once again like a living room, rather than a packaging factory, they get to work on dinner.

Dean always forgets what a big affair holiday dinners are. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July (and screw whatever Sam says, barbecue counts as a holiday dinner in his mind)…between the buying, the preparation, and the actual cooking, it always seems like eating the food is sort of secondary. In the kitchen, Sam takes charge, directing Dean like a general moving troops across a field. Carrots and onions need to be chopped, the thawed ham needs to studded with cloves (whatever that means) and then covered with maple syrup and brown sugar (“I thought this was a dinner, not a dessert,” Dean says, and Sam glares at him). The sweet potatoes need to be peeled, and the regular potatoes need to be mashed. Slowly, one thing after another, the food gets prepared, and pushed into the oven or else propped up on the stove, and eventually there’s nothing left to do but to wait for the ham to cook all the way through.

“I’m gonna put on some Zeppelin,” Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes, but he smiles, too, and doesn’t say anything as Dean pushes away from the counter and heads back out into the living room. He digs out his old record player from behind the television, blowing dust off the cover and then plugging it in next to the desktop. He runs his fingers over the smooth glass case, the faux cherrywood sides, and then he carefully pulls the Zeppelin vinyl from his small pile of presents, slides it from its sleeve and then sets it in the record player. He lifts the needle and then lets it rest, closing his eyes as the record spins, and “Whole Lotta Love” begins to play. The sound is scratchier than Dean remembers it, back when his father used to play Zeppelin and the Stones late at night, a bottle of whiskey in one hand a his eyes closed so that his sons couldn’t see him crying. But maybe that’s because Dean is used to CDs, now (he’s resolutely avoided getting an MP3 player, much to Sam’s discontent).

Or maybe it’s because his memories of that time, of his and Sam’s childhood, are somewhat necessarily skewed. The good times seem brighter. The bad times seem more forgivable. He’s not sure how he could have survived, if he hadn’t thought like that.

Humming softly, Dean stands, stretching his arms and rolling his shoulders. He glances at the desktop. He hasn’t checked his grades. Sam’s been checking them, every day, almost obsessively, once in the morning and several times at night, just to make sure that his professors haven’t posted the results of the finals when his back was turned. Dean hasn’t checked at all. Not even once.

He should probably do that.

Groaning, Dean drops down into the chair in front of the desktop, glancing over his shoulder just to make sure Sam is still occupied in the kitchen. It’s not like Dean has any particular desire, or need, to hide his grades from his brother, he just…he can’t really put his finger on it. It doesn’t even necessarily have to do with the grades at all. There’s just something that’s telling him that he wants to keep whatever it is he sees to himself. Whether that’s grades or not, he doesn’t know yet.

With no Sam in sight, Dean logs on to the Portal website to check his grades.

Out of the five classes he took, the lowest grade he got was a B, in English 30. Everything else…A-, A, A-, B+. Dean closes his eyes and then opens them again, wondering if he’s hallucinating, if maybe he’s fallen asleep at the computer and now he’s dreaming. He pinches the inside of his wrist, wincing slightly. Nothing. He’s awake.

The grade sheet informs him that he’s got a GPA of 3.54 for the semester. That you only need a 3.50 to make the Dean’s list.

Dean decides not to tell Sam that part. No need to get him unnecessarily excited. There’s still lots of time until the next semester – maybe it’s a clerical error or something, and it’ll get fixed soon. Dean will check a day or two before the Spring semester, just to make sure.

He hovers the mouse over the “x” button.

But he pauses.

He has mail.

That’s not normal. Dean _never_ has mail; he doesn’t really know many people aside from Sam, and so he doesn’t tend to exchange emails. He thinks Jess might still have his, although a bitter part of him hopes that she’s deleted it from her contacts list with the same vehement anger as he’d deleted hers, and…and Lisa probably has his email, still. He pushes that thought away. It’s not worth dwelling on. Lisa is a couple states away and a few years behind him, and there’s just…no point.

Dean takes a deep breath, and then clicks on the link to his email.

The first thing he notices is that it’s an email address that isn’t immediately familiar…which is to say, it isn’t from Sam, not from Sam’s school address and not from his personal address. It’s not from Jessica. It’s sure as hell not from Lisa, because Lisa used hotmail, not gmail. Dean’s searching his memory, trying to remember if he’s ever given his email out to any of his one-night stands, when he realizes that it would probably be faster if he just opened the damn thing and read it. It’s probably spam. _Probably_. And after the ham is done he can show it to Sam and they can both laugh about the fifteen incredible new ways to enlarge your penis or save on your credit card or whatever the hell it might be.

Reassured slightly, Dean clicks the email, preparing to count how many different euphemisms for “dick” he can find within the body of the email.

He doesn’t find any. Not a single one. Dean reads the email, throat tight, something in his chest unfurling, uncomfortable, but, if he were pressed to describe it, he wouldn’t be able to say that it was _bad_.

 _Dear Dean,_

 _I am emailing you from my personal address because I am writing not in the capacity of an advisor, but in the capacity of a friend. I do hope that it is acceptable for me to call you a friend, despite your position as a student, and mine as a university employee._

 _I feel as though, when we last saw each other, I may have given you the wrong impression about your gift. While Freud’s theories have been considered to be outdated for many years now, his legacy is still important to modern day psychology in that we have built off of his theories in order to reach the accepted practices and ideas of today. It is my belief that I delayed too long in informing you of all of this, which may have caused you to think that I did not enjoy the calendar, which is false. I find many of the quotes to be amusing, and, on occasion, thought-provoking, in that sometimes we must look to the past in order to better understand what is happening in the present._

 _I am told that I could make a pun out of that sentence, regarding “present,” meaning the current date, and “present,” meaning “gift,” however, I shall refrain._

 _In conclusion, thank you, Dean. I do not often receive gifts for the holiday, and it was surprise, not distaste, that rendered me stunned when you presented me with yours._

 _Have a pleasant holiday and a joyous New Year,_

 _\- Castiel_

And that’s it. That’s the email. Awkward and sort of stilted, but it’s so unmistakably _Castiel_ that Dean doesn’t even consider, not for a second, that it might be someone trying to trick him. After all, who actually knows about his inappropriate crush? Well, yeah, Sam’s got _some_ idea by now, but he thinks Dean’s interested in another student, not _staff_.

Dean swallows. _God_. What if Sam’s gone through his email, though? Or what if Dean’s been talking in his sleep? He’s never done that before, but weirder things have happened, right?

 _What if this email address is actually Sam’s,_ Dean thinks. And then, just as quickly, _You’re being stupid, there’s details in there that Sam wouldn’t know, not even if you talked in your sleep._ Still, he’s…concerned.

Until he sees that the email has an attachment.

“Dean! Ham’s almost done!”

“I’ll be right there,” Dean calls out, and then, hurriedly, clicks the link and watches the image download.

His breath catches in his throat.

It’s a picture. It’s a picture of Castiel, probably a photo, probably taken with a digital camera, because it doesn’t have that blurry look that pictures used to have, back when you had to scan things if you wanted to email them to someone else. Castiel is sitting in a chair, hands folded neatly in his lap, and behind him there’s the bright glow of fairy lights, reds and blues and greens. It’s not an office – it looks like a living room, and Dean can see, to Castiel’s right, a doorway that leads to what looks like a kitchen. And, sitting half-on and half-off Castiel’s shoulder, draped partially over the back of the chair and looming like a disapproving storm cloud, is a long, smooth-looking grey cat, white splashed haphazardly across its chest and some of its face. Both the cat and its owner are wearing identical expressions of intense, unwavering interest, and Dean, for a moment, is startled by how blue Castiel’s eyes are, even through a photo.

Castiel is smiling. Not a lot – just a barely-there quirk of his lips, just at the corner, but Dean notices it almost immediately.

Behind Castiel, lit by the glow of the multicolored lights, is a desk. Sitting on the desk, placed conspicuously top center, is Dean’s stupid, shitty little fourteen-dollar desk calendar.

At the bottom of the picture, looking like they’ve been pasted there by a kindergartner who happens to be unusually proficient with Photoshop, are the words “Happy Holidays from Castiel and King Stuart III.”

Dean wonders if it’s normal for your throat to feel thick and tight after getting a holiday card. An _e_ -card, at that.

“ _Dean_!”

“I’m coming, Sam! Christ!” Dean reaches up, rubbing his fingers across his cheeks. He’s not crying. Is he? No…no, his fingers come away dry. Thank God.

Dean glances over his shoulder one more time, just to make sure that Sam isn’t about to storm out of the kitchen and drag him away from the computer. Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You” plays softly in the background.

Dean closes out of the picture, and then moves the email to his “saved” folder.

Then, after logging out of his account, Dean shuts off the monitor, turns off his record player, and heads back into the kitchen to help Sam take the ham out of the oven.  



End file.
